KS med Board to appeal Neuhaus license ruling

The Kansas State Healing Arts Board voted unanimously Friday evening to appeal the March 7 district court ruling overturning its July 2012 license revocation of former abortionist Ann Kristin (Kris) Neuhaus.

After nine-months’ reflection, Judge Franklin R. Theis issued a very pro-abortion ruling, sending the issue back to the Board for “review,” opining that it was wrong to take away Neuhaus’ license.

Neuhaus does not have a current Kansas license to practice medicine, even in a restricted manner, but this ruling allows her to apply for one—though it is exceedingly doubtful the Board would approve it.

Neuhaus lost her license for repeatedly breaking the state rules on medical record-keeping and patient exams. Specifically, she had issued the required ‘validation’ for third-trimester abortions for 11 young teens in 2003 under the claim that the girls would otherwise suffer “irreparable and sustainable” mental harm. (read more here)

Those 11 cases originated in medical files that had been acquired by then-Kansas Attorney General, Phill Kline. Kline had obtained the records in an attempt (thwarted under then-Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and the state Supreme Court) to prosecute the late George Tiller for abusing the law on exceptions to the Kansas ban on post-viability abortions.

Judge Theis ruled, “there is not sufficient proof to support the board’s findings of ‘professional incompetency’…based on Neuhaus’ failure to maintain adequate records to support the diagnosis.” Instead, he

Excuse me, Judge, but not being able to find evidence of the nature of the patient’s problems from Neuhaus’ own scanty notations and checkbox-formatted computer printouts IS the point!

The administrative court opinion (upholding the Board’s complaint) ruled there was no evidence “of any examination nor…of what transpired between the patient and licensee [Neuhaus].” Yet this was supposedly a ‘referral’ by a second, so-called independent, doctor that an abortion was the recommended solution to an irreversible mental health problem.

Obviously, the Board believes it more than ‘made its case’ and will not ‘rethink’ its sanction. In a quickly convened, 22-minute meeting conducted by phone Friday evening (with discussion by the members closed to the public), the Board chose to get Theis’ ruling voided through an appeal to the state court of appeals.

According to 2009 court testimony, Buening helped Wichita abortionist Tiller find a Kansas licensed doctor willing to ‘rubber stamp’ post-viability abortions as being authorized under a mental health exemption. Buening recommended Neuhaus, and helped steer the Board to allow her to keep her license after she had lost federal drug privileges and been found repeatedly unable to properly evaluate, examine, monitor and discharge patients.

But this well-documented pattern of Neuhaus’ inability to do the bare essentials of medical intake was downplayed by Theis. Other errors in this wrong-headed ruling will be further examined in an upcoming post.

[…] Neuhaus won a reprieve of that revocation from Shawnee District Court Judge Franklin Theis, who ruled that –although her record-keeping was deficient–the revocation was too severe a penalty and the Board must revisit the case. […]

[…] Neuhaus won a reprieve of that revocation from Shawnee District Court Judge Franklin Theis, who ruled that –although her record-keeping was deficient–the revocation was too severe a penalty and the Board must revisit the case. […]

[…] Neuhaus won a reprieve of that revocation from Shawnee District Court Judge Franklin Theis, who ruled that –although her record-keeping was deficient–the revocation was too severe a penalty and the Board must revisit the case. […]